• shireboy 2 hours ago

    This is pretty cool. As a self-taught developer with a non-CS major, my math limited out at college algebra 2. I recently did Brilliant.org calculus just to try to make better sense of various CS papers, and I thought at the time I could probably understand some of the concepts in code better than standard mathematics notation. Something like this definitely helps me understand the math symbols better. I could see taking it to the next level and adding other languages and symbols.

    • sxp 2 hours ago

      Do programmers use those weird font ligatures in practice? E.g, Rendering `a != b` as `a≠b`. I've only seen them used by people who want to show how far they can push coding style away from the standard monospace low ASCII, but haven't seen any good justification for them.

      • tkcranny 2 hours ago

        I happily use Fira Code [1] with ligatures. It has nothing to do with pushing coding style away from monospace, and everything to do with readability. Aesthetics are certainly a part of it but perfectly compatible with it too.

        Of particular note is that the JS arrow function becomes a real arrow ⇒, which is nicer than the operator-ish rendering of equals and a greater than sign. Other quality of life improvements are reshaping ripples of characters to be clearer, such as a reshape to www and **. Triple bar equals is nice too given the differences in JS.

        [1] https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode

      • Rendello 2 hours ago

        I like this a lot. I've been going through HS-level math with Math Academy and I'm always intrigued when I see these symbols in advanced calculations elsewhere online.

        I recently learned the syntax for half-open intervals. It's so frustrating that I can't bear to type it out. This is relevant: https://xkcd.com/859/

        • shireboy 2 hours ago

          My son is using Math Academy and it's been excellent. A really good system if anyone is looking for online math course.

          • Rendello an hour ago

            I've been at it consistently for a month, it really is good. The only downside is that I'm desperately on the search for other courses with its format to no avail.